


From Whence You Came (To Where You’ll Go)

by imissmycatsface



Series: In The Night [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Astrid Doesn't Sharpen Her Axe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Astrid overhears his one-sided conversation with Toothless, Gen, Oneshot, where instead of rushing in to intimidate Hiccup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissmycatsface/pseuds/imissmycatsface
Summary: "Leaving. We're leaving. Pack your stuff, bud, because we're going on a vacation... forever."Astrid watched from the top of the rock as Hiccup talked to the air. For a second she debated sharpening her axe to get his attention, but decided against it. If she was noticed, and the intimidation failed (and she had a strange suspicion that it wouldn't work on Hiccup), he might not reveal who he was talking to. Might not reveal exactly how he had cheated his way to the top.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless
Series: In The Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857661
Comments: 5
Kudos: 175





	From Whence You Came (To Where You’ll Go)

"Leaving. We're leaving. Pack your stuff, bud, because we're going on a vacation... forever."

Astrid watched from the top of the rock as Hiccup talked to the air. For a second she debated sharpening her axe to get his attention, but decided against it. If she was noticed, and the intimidation failed (and she had a strange suspicion that it _wouldn't_ work on Hiccup), he might not reveal who he was talking to. Might not reveal exactly how he had cheated his way to the top.

Quietly, she flattened herself down and watched as Hiccup unclasped the strange leather contraption he had on.

"Come on out, bud, I've brought your favourite fish for you!" He called over his shoulder.

Astrid's eyes widened as she heard a strange whuffling moan come from the other side of the clearing, followed by a huffing noise. It was clearly a response to what Hiccup was saying, but... that sound...

That sound hadn't been human.

It seemed Hiccup knew what it meant, because as soon as he heard it he straightened up almost indignantly and turned to face where the noise had come from, hands fisted on his hips. "No, I am _not_ being dramatic, Toothless, this is a serious-"

A growl ending in a chuff.

"Buddy, if you don't stop with the attitude I'm going to dump every single fish in this basket into the lake. And you know I don't want to do that, because like I said, we have to leave, which requires you to have eaten enough fish for you to get us over to that one island with those Terrible Terrors."

Terrible Terrors? Astrid almost growled in vindication. So he _had_ been sneaking in some extra practice!

A pause came for a few seconds after Hiccup stopped speaking. Then a halfhearted whine. Astrid heard something thudding from behind the little cluster of trees, then spotted movement in it out of the corner of her eye and flattened herself onto the rock even more to avoid being seen. Unfortunately, this meant she didn't have the best view of whoever - _whatever_ \- Hiccup was talking to.

From her cut off view, she could vaguely make out a sort of blurry black form coming out from behind the trees. It was bigger than any yak she had ever seen, though not by much.

"There you are," sighed Hiccup. "Come on, get your food, I didn't lug it all the way here for nothing. I have to get your prosthetic ready to fly us out of here."

Astrid stilled.

Fly? Hiccup... he couldn't have...

An animal bigger than a yak, undeniably intelligent enough to understand what Hiccup was saying... Hiccup's sudden affinity with the captured dragons in the ring.

Barely above her racing thoughts and ringing in her ears, Astrid heard four-legged footsteps coming towards the rock Hiccup was in front of. The one she was currently on.

She heard snuffling mere feet away from her head and realised with muted horror that it had reached the rock.

"Thanks, bud." Hiccup sounded mildly exhausted as he continued. "Please don't make this too hard to do, we have limited time, and I'm not sure how limited it is. Fill your belly, greedy guts.

When the animal began slurping, Astrid felt it was safe enough for her to risk lifting her head up a little.

She almost immediately wished she hadn't.

The... dragon Hiccup had been talking to... was unlike any she'd ever seen or read about. Its scales were an inky black, and almost seemed to absorb light. Half of its tail seemed to be made of leather, from what she could make out from around Hiccups back.

Between its wings was a saddle.

Astrid tried not to hyperventilate. Hiccup had tamed a dragon!! Hiccup, the failure son of the chief, who couldn't even throw an axe straight, had managed to tame one of the most fierce animals in the world. Not only that, but he didn't even sound careful around it, like it was nothing more than some other, more human-friendly creatures like dogs, rather than a reptile far larger than him, who could breathe fire.

Was this where he came after dragon training every day, she wondered, then startled when the dragon suddenly stood on its hind legs.

She was so scared that she didn't notice that it still had the fish basket on its face for a second. As soon as she did, she slid down the rock, to crouch on its other side, and put her face in her hands to stop them from shaking.

"Toothless!" She heard Hiccup say crossly. "What are you doing, you- did you get stuck in the basket again?!" Toothless whimpered defensively. She heard Hiccup muttering to himself as he came closer to the front of the rock. "Nobody in the village would believe this, I tell you. You know they consider you the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself?" He snorted, and Astrid was suddenly very aware of how loud her breathing was. "Toothless, the until recently terror of our village, unlimited plasma blasts and probably one of the most intelligent species of dragons out there, but can't find his way out of a woven basket. I honestly don't know how you avoided getting shot down before I came along, you useless reptile," he said, fondly exasperated.

Astrid felt like hitting her head on the rock behind her. Hiccup had been telling the truth! The village had been so close to getting rid of one of their biggest nuisances, and instead of killing it like everyone else would have done, Hiccup had made friends with it! What idiot chose to make friends with a dragon?!

“Well... maybe it’s a good thing nobody in the village knows what a bonehead you are,” Hiccup continued. “They all think dragons are these horrible monsters, you know? Like I did, when I shot you down. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

Astrid peeked around the rock long enough to see Toothless whacking Hiccup over the side of his head with one of those... ear... things.. on its head. That thing dared to attack Hiccup in front of her?! She gripped her ax tighter.

“Ow.” Hiccup grumbled, pointing at Toothless. “No, I won’t take that back, it’s my fault you can’t fly by yourself anymore! Flying is what dragons were made for, it’s like if I lost one of my legs or arms or something. Gods, and if someone else from the village had found you first, you would have lost more than your tail fin.” Hiccup stilled.

“Speaking of which,” his voice sounded forced. “We’ve got to leave, remember? I.. oh god, Toothless. I can’t deal with the village anymore. They make such a sport out of hurting dragons, as if it’s such an honour to kill something for no reason. Well, they think they have a reason, at least,” amended Hiccup, absently patting Toothless on the snout. Astrid felt her eyes widen in fury. No reason?! No reason?!! Hiccup’s mother had been a victim of the dragon raids, he’d seen first hand the chaos created by the dragon raids, and he still said there was no reason to kill dragons?! If he didn’t want to kill the dragon at the end of dragon training classes, he shouldn’t have cheated his way to the top!

Hiccup, ever oblivious to the growing ire behind the rock, carried on. “I guess it makes sense, in their minds, to get revenge on the dragons or something? What I don’t understand is the training rink. Keeping dragons captive, chained up, caged...” Toothless growled.

“I know, bud, it’s messed up. How about this, we don’t leave right away. During the night we’ll sneak into the village like we did that one time Astrid almost caught us- god, she’s so cool- and let the other dragons decide whether or not to come with us, yeah?”

Decidedly ignoring that throwaway comment about herself, Astrid focused on the plan. If she could catch them redhanded, the entire village would see that she was the rightful champion. On the other hand, if the next day the village found out that both Hiccup and all the rink dragons had gone missing at the same time, it wouldn’t be too hard to get them to connect the dots and banish Hiccup from ever returning.

Toothless made a whistling chirping sound.

“It’s decided, then,” Hiccup sounded awfully happy for someone who was about to leave his village and family. “We’ll go scout out the island for good places to live, and then come back for the other dragons. Gods, I can’t wait to not be the village failure anymore. Hopefully they’ll just think I got eaten by the dragons we let out or something and decide I’m dead.”

From around the rock, she could see Hiccup climbing onto the back of the Night Fury. Once Hiccup was in the saddle, he and the Night Fury reside themselves, and then in a blur of black, they shot over the rock and disappeared over the trees.

Astrid watched them go curled up in a ball.

She stared at the place they had left her sight for a long time before slowly getting up and walking back towards the village with strangely shaky legs.

She had a lot to think about before night came.


End file.
